Chapter Chapter 115 · THE BEGINNING OF AN ENIGMA

Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and

of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to

be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape,

with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall

forest trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre, where

could be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruit-trees,

gnarled and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch,

whose glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and

there stood stone benches which seemed black with moss. The alleys were

bordered with gloomy and very erect little shrubs. The grass had half

taken possession of them, and a green mould covered the rest.

Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as a

means of descent, a pile of fagots, and, behind the fagots, directly

against the wall, a stone statue, whose mutilated face was no longer

anything more than a shapeless mask which loomed vaguely through the

gloom.

The building was a sort of ruin, where dismantled chambers were

distinguishable, one of which, much encumbered, seemed to serve as a

shed.

The large building of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had a wing on the Rue

Petit-Picpus, turned two façades, at right angles, towards this garden.

These interior façades were even more tragic than the exterior. All the

windows were grated. Not a gleam of light was visible at any one of

them. The upper story had scuttles like prisons. One of those façades

cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an

immense black pall.

No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist

and darkness. Nevertheless, walls could be confusedly made out, which

intersected as though there were more cultivated land beyond, and the

low roofs of the Rue Polonceau.

Nothing more wild and solitary than this garden could be imagined.

There was no one in it, which was quite natural in view of the hour;

but it did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk

in, even in broad daylight.

Jean Valjean’s first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put

them on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette. A man who is

fleeing never thinks himself sufficiently hidden. The child, whose

thoughts were still on the Thénardier, shared his instinct for

withdrawing from sight as much as possible.

Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous

noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets; the

blows of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert’s appeals to the

police spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with

words which could not be distinguished.

At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that

species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held

his breath.

He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette’s mouth.

However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm, that

this frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him

by so much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those

walls had been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak.

All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a

sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been

horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst

of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night;

women’s voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the

pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,—voices

which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn

infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song

proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At

the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said

that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.

Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.

They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of

them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that

they must kneel.

These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent

the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant

in an uninhabited house.

While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no

longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he

felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding.

The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could

not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.

All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street;

there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had

reassured him,—all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds on

the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy

sound.